Smart Gate Drive Technology

Texas Instruments continues to provide innovative motor drive solutions that are smarter, safer, and smaller than ever before. One of the latest technologies, Smart Gate Drive, offers a combination of protection features and gate drive configurability to improve design simplicity and bring a new level of intelligence to motor systems. Let's take a deeper look at the features and benefits.
In traditional gate drive designs, each FET requires up to four external components to control current and prevent unintentional FET turn-ons. With smart gate drive technology, up to 24 of these components can be integrated into the motor driver itself. This significantly reduces board size, design complexity, and cost.
As a result, the gate drives strength, or gate drive current, is now controlled from the motor driver itself. Controlling the drive strength plays an important role in overall system performance. As shown in this single phase motor drive example, some applications require FETs to be turned on very quickly. This reduces power dissipation and increases efficiency, but could cause unwanted switch node ringing and electromagnetic radiation, otherwise known as EMI.
Other applications require FETs to be switched more slowly, which minimizes EMI but increases power dissipation. The great thing is smart gate drive technology provides designers the flexibility to choose the gate drive string that fits their needs. In addition, TI's smart gate drive technology also provides added system protection and reliability.
The FETs are constantly monitored by the gate driver to detect faults and prevent short circuit conditions. For example, if a FET's switching transitions are not properly sequenced, a shoot through condition can occur. This can cause high current spikes and excessive heat dissipation, potentially damaging the FETs. To prevent this, smart gate drive technology monitors the FET's gate voltage and inserts a period of dead time after a FET is turned off, thereby protecting the integrity of the FET and gate driver.
If there is a fault detected, the gate driver will turn off the FETs in a controlled manner to prevent damage to the system. As an additional protection feature, active and passive pull downs are also integrated into the driver. This prevents FETs from accidentally turning on while driving other FETs or when the device is powered off.
With its protection, space saving, and easy to use features, TI's smart gate drive technology brings added benefits to any motor drive design. For more information and to explore TI's smart gate drive products, please visit TI.com/motordrivers.

Description

May 15, 2019

As the most intelligent and highly integrated gate drive technology, TI's Smart Gate Drive is easy to use, offers system cost savings, and provides reliable protection. This video will detail more about these benefits and help you find the right smart gate driver for your next design.